1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to communication equipment and more particularly to universal serial bus and Bluetooth devices.
2. Description of Related Art
As is known, for communication devices (e.g., computers, cellular telephones, printers, game consoles, control devices, personal digital assistants, etc.) to communicate, they need a wired or wireless connection. As is also known, there are many standards that dictate the signaling protocol and/or hardware protocol for wired communications and wireless communications. Further, many massed produced devices, such as computers, PDAs, cellular telephones, etc., include communication circuitry to support one or more wired and/or wireless standards. Such wired standards include Ethernet, universal serial bus, fire wire, etc., and wireless standards include IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, and extensions thereof, etc.
For example, hardware requirements for a USB connection require a 4.5 millimeter (mm) connector opening, including the metal housing. Inside the metal housing is 3.87 mm, which leads to 1.935 mm allowed for a mating “half” of the connector. The USB contacts themselves are specified at 0.38 mm. This leaves approximately 1.55 mm between the bottom of the connector and the USB metal housing.
As a result of these requirements, current USB Bluetooth dongle designs, which essentially convert a USB connection into a Bluetooth connection, only mount devices outside of the USB connector. This then requires that the design be much longer and thus extend from a device (e.g., a personal computer (PC)) by 1 inch or more. In mobile applications, this extension is easily broken off, causing damage to not only the dongle but to the PC as well.
Therefore, a need exists for a small form factor USB Bluetooth dongle that overcomes the above mentioned limitations.